Turkey’s Minister of Interior Suleyman Soylu said 1,000 special police officers had been dispatched to the borders with Greece at Evros “to protect the refugees.
“We are sending 1,000 special police officers to the border to prevent the inhumane acts of Greeks in Evros,” he stated Thursday morning.
The Turkish Minister, who flew by helicopter over the Greek-Turkish border, claimed that Ankara was making the move in order to prevent the Greeks from pushing the “refugees” back into Turkish territory.
The Turkish politician reiterated that Turkey was no longer impeding immigrants who wanted to cross into Greece and Europe, saying that “whoever wants to come, comes” and “whoever passes, passes”.
“We have consulted with the Armed Forces and are sending 1,000 Special Forces Police Officers, fully equipped, across the Evros River to prevent further forced return of refugees. Only 139,070 people passed through Edirne. ”
Soylu blasted FRONTEX, Europe’s border security body, accusing it of acting as a “force of repression”.
Meanwhile, about 35,000 migrants who attempted to enter Greece illegally from the Evros area have been repelled by police and army forces over the past five days, from Saturday morning February 29 to Thursday morning, March 5.
Reports say that in recent hours the Turkish authorities are escorting waves of migrants via buses to the Adrianople area to push them into Greece.